


the shuffle of crabs

by againstmygreeleaf



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Coping, Emotional Constipation, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Mild Gore, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 12:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12211590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/againstmygreeleaf/pseuds/againstmygreeleaf
Summary: Dinner is loud in all but volume. Shiro and Keith don’t show. Allura keeps trying to help by saying sentimental things that don’t help at all. It grinds on Lance’s nerves but he’s too drained to tune her out. He just lets her words unintentionally pelt his battered heart like stones, and watches the subtle way her hands shake as she spoons up her goo instead of trying to eat his own.Pidge eats hers, but it’s all automatic. She starts crying midway through the meal and doesn’t seem to notice.





	the shuffle of crabs

**Author's Note:**

> Title is shameless ripped from this A Softer Word strip: http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=862
> 
> Anyway, I got a suggestion in a review on a different fic to kill Hunk off...so I did. The temptation was strong because for personal reasons, death!fic is actually really cathartic for me. So strong I dropped everything else I was doing and popped this out, including something that's so damn old I meant to produce it for Femslash February. Bah. 
> 
> So it goes without saying, you know, warning for character death! If that triggers you, you probably do not want to read this! This time it's permanent, not the other temporary and fake death I've included in other fics on here. Just the actual thing and whatnot, and it's unpleasant aftermath on the living. If that is triggering or upsetting to you, I recommend avoiding this.

Shiro grabs his shoulder and he barely feels it. “Come on, Lance. I have to get you back to the castle.”

Lance chokes out a noise and vehemently shakes his head, clinging all the tighter to Hunk’s hand.

“Lance…He’s not _there_ anymore,” Shiro emphasizes and it almost sounds like he’s begging him. “You’re hurt, you need help.”

Lance’s stomach clenches, a fresh flood of tears burning his eyes. He feels the yawning wound of loss far more than he feels the mangled mess that is his leg. It’s bent unnaturally and a wide slash unzips his skin, fragments of armor sticking out of pulpy muscle like cactus spines. Earlier he’d been debilitated with pain but now it doesn’t even matter, he feels it even less than he felt Shiro’s touch.

“We can’t leave him here,” he whimpers, protectively draping himself over Hunk’s remains, burying his face into the crimson splashed crater in the cuirass.

“I can’t help him anymore. I have to help you now, you’re bleeding,” Shiro urges. “Lance, please.”

His voice wavers at the end and Lance lifts his head, gasping.

“You’ll come back for him, right? When you’re done taking care of me, you’ll come back for him?”

Shiro resolutely nods. “I will, I promise.”

Lance peels himself off of Hunk and this too, inflicts a wound far deeper than the physical one he has. He feels like he’s being shredded of everything intrinsic inside of him, abandoning one of the most important people in his life.

“I can’t walk,” he informs Shiro numbly, fixed on the sunken stare of Hunk’s corpse. Lance had to crawl over here to begin with and by then it’d been too late to do anything but stay with him. Maybe if he hadn’t gotten hurt, if he’d been able to race over as fast as he could, Hunk wouldn’t have ended up like this.

A sob burbles out of him at the thought and then they just keep coming, his whole body quaking with tide of them.

Shiro carefully scoops him up and Lance sobs himself to exhaustion long before they make it back to the castle.

* * *

When Lance first comes to in the cryo-pod, desperate, frantic hope soars in his heart. He’s had nightmares in the pod before, maybe it was just a nightmare—

Then three seconds later the pod slides open and the first body he stumbles into is all wrong, leaner arms, denser frame. Coran holds Lance steady while he catches his breath, gaze darting wildly for a presence he already knows in the pit of his gut he won’t find. A sharp, cruel hopelessness stabs him straight through the heart. He doesn’t see Shiro either and that twists the knife.

“Don’t tell me Shiro’s dead too,” he pleads, crushed.

“No,” Keith says immediately, voice rough like it gets whenever he overtaxes it yelling. “He had a bad night, I made him lie down.”

Lance exhales heavily. He doesn’t feel better, really. He just feels somewhat less sick to his stomach. Coran gently squeezes his forearm, but Lance pulls away.

“You went back for Hunk,” he notes, not a question. Pidge has her hair pulled back into a short ponytail, and it’s Hunk’s headband she’s used as a holder, the dangling ribbons of orange fabric much longer than her actual hair. “Where’d you put him?”

Pidge draws breath to speak, but her jaw trembles and all that comes out is a choked sound. Her eyes are puffy and red behind her glasses and when Lance meets them, they squeeze shut.

Keith sends a sidelong glance to Allura, who steps forward, frowning tightly as she puts a hand on Lance’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry but he couldn’t be recovered, Lance.”

“What?” Lance gapes. “But Pidge has his headband, Shiro promised me—“

“We went back for him,” Keith interjects, “but we couldn’t stick around to get him out. More Galra showed up with a fresh unit of sentries. It wasn’t safe.”

“It wasn’t safe,” Lance parrots flatly. “Are you kidding me?”

Keith either takes it as a challenge or just needs something else to yell at, because his eye twitches and he shoulders Allura out of the way, thrusting into Lance’s space.

“We’d already lost the fight even before we went back there! Just what do you think we should’ve done?”

“You should’ve brought him back!” Lance shouts, fuming with a fury he realizes even in the moment, doesn’t really have anything to do with Keith at all. “Nothing we do is safe, that’s not an excuse! You left him to rot!”

“I’m telling you it wasn’t an option,” Keith growls, already roughened voice cracking. “You rather we would’ve stuck around and got killed too?”

“How did you feel when Shiro was declared dead and you didn’t have a body, or anything to say goodbye to?” Lance fires at him. “That’s exactly how Hunk’s family is going to feel and it’s going to be ten times worse because there’s not going to be any miraculous reunion, he’s really gone!”

Keith backs down, fists clenching.

Pidge laughs bitterly and it catches them off guard, this dark, barbed tumbleweed of a noise. “Hunk’s family? Don’t be stupid, Lance, we’re gonna end up just like him long before we get the chance to tell them anything.”

“Paladins, please,” Allura implores, clasping her hands over her breast. “I realize things are difficult right now, but don’t despair. We can’t fall apart when we need each other.”

“What I need is space,” Lance mutters, deflating.

He warps his arms around himself and wearily plods away. He doesn’t consciously decide to go to Hunk’s room, it’s just something that happens automatically. He barely realizes he’s there until he’s sitting on the bed.

It doesn’t feel like Hunk’s room without him in it. It isn’t that personalized, after all. They didn’t exactly get the chance to pack their stuff back on Earth. There are some things, though. Blueprints Lance doesn’t understand pinned to the wall by magnets. Some headphones he probably borrowed from Pidge without asking and a notepad on the table.

Lance picks the notepad up and strokes his fingertips over the writing. He finds some space recipes and footnotes about Hunk’s various observations, of the planets they’ve been to, or Yellow, or their team.

_Keith doesn’t understand sporks,_ is scrawled in the margins of a page entirely dedicated to their efficiency and Lance surprises himself by smiling at it. Of course Keith doesn’t understand sporks. Lance never really understood what the big deal was either, though he’d earnestly tried to.

Other choice notes about Keith include _Keith needs to take a chill pill_ , and _I bet Keith likes hugs more than he lets on._ Lance snorts, keeps leafing through. _Do NOT startle Shiro_ , is a piece of advice he finds directly after _Let’s be real, we all want to touch Shiro’s floof_ , and Lance wonders if there’s an incident he’s not aware of between the lines. He supposes he’d have to ask Shiro and chokes up at the thought.

There’s some drawings here and there, mostly crude and scribbly but a few with visible effort put in. One of those is of Shay. She takes up the whole page, portrayed as smiling with a little halo over her head in crisp blue ink. Mist stings Lance’s eyes and the corners of the pad crinkle quietly as his hands tense.

The sketch of Shay blurs, his tears streaming down and pattering against the page. The ink smears where they land.

“Shit.” Lance whisks the pad aside, scrubbing his eyes along the thin sleeve of his under-suit. He hopes he didn’t ruin the picture. He wasn’t really aware of when he began to cry, somehow. Now that he is, he can’t stop.

He grabs Hunk’s robe from the floor and bundles it up, burying his face into the yellow folds until he can’t breathe without inhaling his friend’s scent. Lance tries to savor it as long as possible but he can barely get a whiff because he’s just crying too damn hard; hysterical uncontrollable crying that leaves his nose clogged and his eyes burning like bonfires.

Lance scrunches up small, rocking back and forth as he clutches the robe so tight to his chest that he’s sure he’ll crack his ribs. He sobs until he’s lightheaded and disgusting, watery ropes of mucus dangle to his chin and stick to his lips. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop.

He knows nothing heavier than this void, the places in him where Hunk’s presence was burned away to ashes that stuff him so full he could asphyxiate on them. His throat is scraped raw and gummy and he’s flabbergasted to discover that sobbing could be just as violent as anything.

Eventually he has no tears left and he’s too drained to do much other than flop on the bed and quiver. The pillow has Hunk’s drool stains on it and Lance nuzzles into them with a despondent kind of need that doesn’t make any sense because drool is gross, but none of this makes sense anyway because Hunk’s dead and he’s not supposed to be, he can’t be.

They have to defend the universe together, right?

* * *

Eventually it’s Pidge who takes a tentative step into Hunk’s room, biting her lip when she looks at Lance. Her brows are narrow but her eyes are still puffy and she looks defiant almost, like she thinks Lance is going to kick her out.

He isn’t going to do that though. He picks his head up from Hunk’s pillow and greets her with a worn, battered, “Hi.”

“Hi,” She returns, shoulders slumping. She glances to the headphones on the table and snorts. “I knew it.”

“Yours?” Lance guesses.

“Yeah.” Pidge picks them up, fiddles with the cord for a second and then puts them around her neck. “He just takes my stuff whenever he wants. And don’t tell me he doesn’t realize how annoying that is because he does. He tries to be all sneaky about it, but I always know.”

“You’re speaking in present tense,” Lance points out tiredly, curling his fingers into the fabric of Hunk’s robe.

Pidge pauses, blinking rapidly as she catches herself. “Right…”

Then she smacks her hand over her heart with a loud thump that sounds undeniably painful, like she put some real force behind it. “I know better, but here it still feels like he’s coming back. I don’t miss him yet, Lance. It hasn’t caught up with me that he’s actually gone. I’m sad, yeah, but…it’s different. I don’t _miss_ him.”

Pidge crumples on the spot, shaking like an injured bird cornered by a cat and stringing together choked curses between weak hiccups. Lance debates for a moment whether or not it would be okay to touch her. She might not want it, she might need to catch her breath before she’s receptive to that.

No, it’s okay, he decides. Pidge knew he was in here. If she wanted to be alone, she wouldn’t have come. He rolls off the bed and crouches beside her, pulling her into a hug. Pidge latches on, squeezing him with more strength than he thought she possessed. She smothers her face into Lance’s chest, silently quaking.

Holding her is the only comfort Lance can offer. He refuses to regurgitate any of the hollow catchphrases you’re supposed to, like how everything is going to be okay, or how at least they had the time they did, or how the more time piles on, the less they’ll feel like shit because they’ll just get used to Hunk not being around.

Maybe that last one has some truth in it though and _god_ , how fucked up is that, that they’ll eventually just grow so accustomed to this hole they’ll forget about this, the here and now, where that hole is more than everything.

Lance’s stomach roils, the foul taste of whatever he last ate crawling into his throat. He swallows it back and saws his teeth into his bottom lip until it bleeds.

They’re like that for awhile, on the floor and holding fast. They’re like that so long Lance’s joints grow stiff and sore. When they do tangle out of each other and stand, Pidge has to shuffle the sleep out of her legs. Lance stretches out and sits on the edge of Hunk’s bed, patting the spot next to him when she’s done.

Pidge apparently needs to move though, because she begins pacing. Her fingers reach back and nervously tug at the orange ribbons that flutter with her stride.

“I have questions about things you probably don’t want to walk about,” she blurts, never pausing to meet Lance’s gaze.

“Can they wait?” he asks softly. “I don’t know how much more I can take, Pidge, I’m…”

Devastated? Heartbroken? Downright done, maybe?

“Yeah,” she sniffs out. “They won’t change anything anyway.”

Lance flops back to Hunk’s bed and plants his face in the pillow. He listens to Pidge pace for a bit and at some point, she has her fill of it and crawls in too. She curls up next to him, sniffling as she gets settled.

“Still smells like him.”

“I know.” Lance drinks it in while he can, because sooner than later it’s going to go stale.

Things are mostly quiet for awhile. Hours even, possibly, Lance hasn’t the faintest clue. They cry on and off. Pidge will start crying, quiet with weepy breaths until she gets snotty, and then Lance will join her like it’s contagious. Or Lance will start crying, whimpering and hitching, and Pidge catches his infectious sobs.

“What do you want to ask?” he asks eventually, eyes sore from what has to be the hundredth round of it. Nothing can hurt worse than this, whatever she can throw at him won’t be the finishing blow, because this is the finishing blow.

Pidge rolls to face him and flicks her tongue over her lips. “You were with Hunk.”

“And?”

“Was it bad?” she asks. “For him, I mean…how was he?”

Lance is caught off guard, this rattles him more than he suspected anything else could. He feels the question slice him down to the quick, and when Pidge watches his face change, her eyes go dark and there’s snapping instead of crying.

“I’m sorry! I just need to know, alright? I’m already going nuts imagining all these things I wasn’t there to see, and I hate it but I still can’t turn it off!”

Lance rolls onto his back to fix a stare on the ceiling, blinking through the burn of more fresh tears. He thinks back to the moments before the unnatural dip in his best friend’s chest stilled, no more broken armor scraping together, no more strained wheezing.

“I don’t know,” he croaks guiltily, voice small. “I, um…I don’t think he suffered? Hunk seemed too out of it to know how bad he was hurt. He straight up told me he was okay and I don’t think it was to make me feel better because he really sounded like he meant it, Pidge.”

“Oh…”

“I don’t know for sure though. Maybe I don’t even remember it right, maybe I just remember it the way I want to.” Lance rakes a hand through his hair, a wave of nausea washing over him as uncertainty slithers up his spine.

“The way you want to?” Pidge laughs and it’s that coarse, bitter note from earlier that rains down like needles to his ears. “It’s not something you want to remember at all, I’m pretty sure you don’t remember it wrong.”

Lance isn’t as convinced. Pidge reads him like a book and sits up, untying the headband and slipping it free. She pinches a stretch of fabric stained with blood and holds it up for Lance to behold, the sight of it churning his stomach.

“You didn’t wash it?” He curls his hand around his mouth.

“It would be rude if I washed it,” Pidge says and Lance wants to ask _what do you mean, rude,_ but she keeps going. “That’s not the point. Hunk had a head injury, didn’t he? You remember right, Lance. He must’ve been too out of it to suffer, or be scared, or…”

Her voice falters and she blessedly covers the bloodied part as she balls the whole thing up in her hands.

“It didn’t take long,” Lance offers, he thinks to support her perspective. But saying it hurts more than he realized it would as the worst memory he has throbs down to his teeth.

“Did he say anything else?”

“Stop.” Lance rolls to face the wall, but Pidge seizes his shoulder and jerks him back.

“I have to know!” Her eyes are brimming with tears and blazing beneath them.

“No!” Lance throws his hands up. “Nothing coherent anyway!”

“Alright! I’m sorry, I just…wish I would’ve been there.”

“No you don’t,” Lance tells her.

Pidge bristles and Lance thinks she’s going to shout at him. She doesn’t though. She pulls her knees to her chest and shakes her head.

“Did you mean what you said earlier?” Lance asks. “You think we’re all gonna bite the dust before we make it back to Earth?”

“I didn’t think so in the beginning, but yeah, I’ve been convinced,” Pidge mutters, defeated. “We’ve seen a lot of scary shit, I still can’t find my family, and now Hunk’s gone.”

Lance wants to tell her she’ll find her family. But when he opens his mouth, he asks if she thinks they’re dead instead.

She bobs her head, tears falling. “I think my dad’s dead. I haven’t found anything on him at all. Maybe Matt’s out there, somewhere, but just escaping Galra captivity doesn’t mean he’s okay. Fuck! I’m not supposed to be talking like this, Lance, I never even let myself think this way!”

He knows that. He’s never heard her so much as suggest the possibility her family could be dead. She’s always firmly asserted that they were out there for her to save, that they’d just have to survive until she got there and there was no doubt in her mind she was going to get there, nothing could stop her. She wouldn’t dare let the darker alternative worm its way into her resolve, not ever.

At least, Lance never thought she would. But then, Lance never thought he’d watch Hunk drown in his own blood.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, patting her head. “I shouldn’t have asked. There’s still a good chance they’re alright, Pidge. Shiro’s optimistic about Matt, isn’t he?”

“Seems to be.” Pidge sniffles and scrubs her nose on the back of her sleeve.

“Well, Shiro has pretty good judgement. So your brother’s probably okay and maybe your dad’s with him.” Lance cards his fingers through her hair, smoothing her bangs back. 

“I didn’t see them together in the footage I found…”

“No, but I bet he’d go back for him if he knew where he was. Right?”

Pidge blinks and slowly nods. Lance offers a weak smile and nods along with her, trying to sell it. Pidge seems pacified enough. She lies down again and wearily burrows into him. Lance idly rubs her back, finding some comfort in the way the knobs of her spine feel under his palm. She doesn’t object.

He’s still rubbing her back when the door slides open and Shiro takes up the frame, looking wrung out and pale, eyes rimmed by tar. Keith might’ve made him lie down but he definitely hasn’t slept.

“You two should get something to eat,” he suggests.

“Not hungry,” Lance says.

Pidge echoes muffled agreement against his chest.

“I know,” Shiro sighs, soft and sad. “Try anyway?”

Although Lance might complain and roll his eyes about too early training sessions, or flirtation with alien babes cut short by reproachful stares, he knows that Shiro doesn’t actually ask for much. Shiro doesn’t ask for much at all.

“Sure,” he concedes. “Come on, Pidge.”

She pulls away and Lance shivers at the sudden loss of her body heat. She stands up and pulls her short hair back as much as she can, tying Hunk’s headband around her little ponytail again. Lance gets up and it occurs to him that he never changed out of the under-suit. He isn’t particularly inclined to either, he can’t summon the motivation.

“Coming with?” Pidge asks Shiro. “You should eat too.”

“Later. I want to find Keith.” Shiro rubs at his temple. “Don’t suppose you guys have seen him?”

They shake their heads.

“Didn’t think so.” He drops his hand and turns on his heel.

His gait seems a little stilted and he’s slightly hunched as he walks away, but Lance waits until he’s out of earshot to comment on it.

“Is he limping?”

Pidge nods. “He hurt his back. Won’t go in the pod though.”

“Why?” Lance frowns.

Pidge shrugs. “Claustrophobia or something? Allura was frustrated and tried to force him and that’s when things got super ugly. Like, he had a panic attack and he punched the wall so hard it dented.”

“How long was I in my pod?” Lance asks, his stomach doing an uneasy somersault.

“About two days.”

“So it’s already been that long…”

“Doesn’t feel like it to me, either,” mumbles Pidge. “But I didn’t come in here until you did. It seems more real in here.”

She shrinks in on herself and Lance doesn’t say anything as he takes her hand and leads her out of Hunk’s room. The door slides shut with this finality like a coffin lid snapping close and Lance freezes right there in the hall, unable to scrub his mind of this sudden flash of intrusive images. A fucking door should be the least of things to throw him but it did and he can barely even catch his breath.

“Let’s go.” Pidge herds him away from the ghosts cramming down his throat, her sweaty hand towing him up the hall.

“What are we gonna eat?” He asks when he has his voice back.

“That’s a good question.”

When they reach the kitchen, Pidge lets go of his hand and rounds the counter to get to the fridge. But something startles her and she spooks, arms pinwheeling as she scrambles backward. Lance hurries over and there’s Keith, sitting on the floor against the counter, arms protectively wrapped around the big chrome jar in his lap.

“Sorry,” he absently tells Pidge.

“It’s fine,” she says. “By the way, Shiro’s looking for you.”

“I’ll find him later.” Keith swallows, scrunching around the jar.

“Are those the treat things Hunk made?” Lance eyes the jar. He doesn’t know what to call them, exactly. They’re ripply and doughy and they taste like a combination of cinnamon rolls and brownies, with this glaze that’s a kind of spicy-sweet, like _Fireball_ candies.

“They’re gone,” Keith hums apologetically.

“Gone!?” Pidge squawks. “No way you ate them all! There were at least thee batches in there!”

Keith nods, throat bobbing as he swallows again, thickly. He looks ill. His face is a sickly pallor. Some stray beads of perspiration trickle down his temples and his brow is furrowed with discomfort.

“Jerk!” Pidge kicks his thigh hard enough to make him grunt. “Hunk made those for everybody! I only got two and it’s not like he can make more!”

Keith looks up at her, pain stark in his eyes. He swallows again, parts his lips to speak, and immediately washes completely white.

“Oh crap,” Lance realizes, “he’s gonna—“

Keith ducks his face into the jar and heaves. Lance gets the impression this isn’t the first time he’s hurled in there because it sounds like his vomit splashes into something thick and syrupy, rather than a surface cleaned of all but crumbs. There’s a brief pause where Keith raises his head, panting, then he’s right back at it again.

“What did you think was going to happen?” Pidge gripes at him, her anger burned down to a worn out wick.

Lance snatches a towel from the counter and rinses it in the sink. He slumps down beside Keith when the latter’s finished throwing up. Keith reaches for the towel with hands wracked by tremors so Lance takes it upon himself to wipe his face off, and he doesn’t care how much doing so must get under Keith’s skin.

“You’re a mess,” he scolds.

“Don’t tell Shiro,” Keith croaks. “He’ll worry.”

“We’re worried too,” Pidge grunts, stepping over and sitting down on Keith’s opposite side. “You just stuffed yourself sick.”

“Didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

A rancid odor floats up from the jar strong enough to burn Lance’s nostrils, but he can’t really scrape up the initiative to tell Keith to wash it out.

“I wanted some of those too,” he mumbles.

“Maybe I can make more,” Keith offers tentatively. “He would write this stuff down sometimes.”

“Wouldn’t taste as good,” Lance and Pidge dismiss at the same time. They’re not not picking on Keith, that’s just how it is.

“I know.” Keith shifts guiltily and bumps his forehead against the rim of the jar.

Bleak silences seem to be today’s theme.

One stretches out between the three of them and the things they don’t say. The things they don’t say is almost a fourth presence all its own. It’s a long one, Lance thinks, because eventually his legs are cramped and he’s so acclimated to the reek of Keith’s vomit that he doesn’t even smell it anymore. The silence drags on still, and he has no inclination to speak or rise to his feet.

Eventually he dozes off. It’s a shallow, dreamless nap, his head against Keith’s shoulder.

* * *

When he comes to, Coran is there, trying to extract the jar from Keith’s grasp, and he feels even more uncomfortable than he did when he drifted off. His neck twinges with a dull ache and his mouth is too dry.

“That’s it,” Coran murmurs as he finally pries Keith’s arms off the jar. For some reason he doesn’t want to let it go, which is stupid, because it’s a pretty gross thing to be hanging on to. But Keith is stubborn about a lot of stupid things, so Lance supposes it isn’t that unlike him.

He takes it to the sink and rinses it out without commenting on its contents. He turns around, pops it in the cleaning unit.

“How long have you been down there?”

“Time isn’t real,” Pidge deadpans.

“Perhaps not, but it is useful.” Coran shuts the door of the cleaning unit. “Does anyone want dinner?”

Lance and Pidge irresistibly look to Keith. He pushes up to his feet and shakes his head. “I should go find Shiro.”

“Training deck,” Coran supplies. “Passed him on my way here. Make sure he doesn’t overwork his back and try to talk him into dinner, would you?”

Keith nods. “Yeah, thanks.”

“How did Shiro get hurt anyway?” Lance asks, concerned.

Keith pauses, sharing a dark look with Pidge. Lance isn’t sure he still wants to know when she tells him anyway.

“Even after he made me and Keith go, Shiro tried to keep his promise to you.” She chews her lip, lowers dim eyes to the floor. “He tried really hard…”

Lance buries his face in his hands.

“Don’t be pissed at him because he couldn’t,” Keith warns. “Shiro blames himself enough without you yelling and screaming in his face.”

That stings like salt in the wound and Lance glares at him sharply.

“Screaming is exactly what _you_ would do if one of us left Shiro dead,” he seethes. “Step out of yourself for five minutes. I’m not like that.”

For all of two seconds, Lance takes this hideous satisfaction in the open hurt that flashes across Keith’s face. Then Keith leaves without the argument he unconsciously expected to ensue and he feels like the worst person in the world. That was shitty, he shouldn’t have said that and he isn’t even mad at Keith, really. He just doesn’t want to be told what to do right now. He doesn’t want to be managed like some broken creature that needs a muzzle.

“Keith will be fine,” Coran says, garnering the regret from Lance’s expression. “You’re all going to be fine, as a matter of fact.”

“Are you?” Pidge asks, genuinely curious.

Being that Coran and Allura are the only Alteans he’s ever met, Lance hardly ever notices that they’re the last of their kind. It seems more like an informed attribute. Altea itself is an obscurity, almost a fantasy when he knows next to nothing of it and under normal circumstances, would’ve never known it existed at all. He hardly ever thinks about just what it means that it’s gone, he only gets glimpses when Coran waxes nostalgia or in the rare moments Allura shows a mournful face.

Coran seems to wither under the question. “More or less, I suppose.”

He gets Lance and Pidge water pouches they didn’t ask for and leaves it at that.

* * *

Dinner is loud in all but volume. Shiro and Keith don’t show. Allura keeps trying to help by saying sentimental things that don’t help at all. It grinds on Lance’s nerves but he’s too drained to tune her out. He just lets her words unintentionally pelt his battered heart like stones, and watches the subtle way her hands shake as she spoons up her goo instead of trying to eat his own.

Pidge eats hers, but it’s all automatic. She starts crying midway through the meal and doesn’t seem to notice. Not even when it gets so messy that snot dribbles from her nose and drops into the bowl. Lance supposes the shades of mucus green and goo green are so close that she wouldn’t be able to pick it out even if she did take note.

It’s pretty gross, but nothing could make him feel sicker than he’s felt since his best friend’s hand went slack.

Coran encourages him to eat because he needs nutrients after healing in the pod, so he compromises with a bite or two and barely tastes anything anyway.

When Pidge is done, she retreats to her laptop. Allura stares after her, hand hesitantly reaching. But it’s too late to keep her here, so Allura draws back with a sigh and Lance ducks out of his seat before the attention’s drawn to him.

Lance should go back to his own quarters. He thinks he’d be better off in his own quarters. It might be easier to breathe in there. And he finds himself going back to Hunk’s anyway, burrowing under the blanket.

Eventually he sleeps and he almost feels like a traitor when he doesn’t have any nightmares.

* * *

Morning hurts about the same.

Lance doesn’t get up immediately. He spends some time curled up in Hunk’s bed. His eyes hurt even before he starts crying, but he does some more of that too. Not as much, not as violently. He doesn’t have the strength to sob the way he did yesterday.

He should shower, probably. Or at least change into something. Normally he’d never let himself go this grimy for this long.

He sits up and scrubs the crust and moisture out of his eyes, takes Hunk’s folded shirt out of the storage compartment and pulls it on. He’s swimming in it, but as the youngest of siblings that break into double digits, it’s far from the first time Lance has worn something too big for him. He finds the excess fabric comforting, actually.

Lance gets up and leaves Hunk’s room, and the sound of the door shutting doesn’t rattle him the way it did yesterday, but its echo still sets free a surge of hopeless grief that tempts more tears. The tears don’t deliver even though his eyes hurt worse than they did on waking. Much worse, they burn like someone tossed sand in them.

Maybe he’s dehydrated. He only had the one water pouch to drink yesterday and he probably could’ve filled a pond with how much he’d cried.

Was that something from a song?

Seems familiar, like it might be a song. The first person Lance would ask is Hunk, and he can’t and that’s not ironic in the least, it’s just cruel.

He wanders around the castle without purpose for awhile, watches Keith slip into the training deck. He goes to Kaltenecker’s pen and is surprised to find Shiro already there, sitting on the floor outside it. The cow is chewing on the fresh space grass Shiro must’ve filled the trough with.

He seems just as surprised to see Lance, tired eyes blinking.

“Hey,” Lance says uncertainly, walking over and putting a hand to Kaltenecker’s flank.

“Hey.” Shiro’s eyes fix on the oversized sleeve slipping down Lance’s arm.

“How you doing?” Lance asks and the answer is evident in the rough way Shiro looks. He’s in a wrinkled tank top and that’s a sure sign he planned on going hermit today, because he doesn’t like any of them seeing his scars. Keloids splatter his flesh arm and the beginnings of slashes stretch under the neckline of the material.

Shiro swallows heavily, helplessness twisted over his features as he bows his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Shiro…it’s not your fault,” Lance promises, trying not to sound pithy. “None of it’s your fault.”

“It is. I’m the leader,” Shiro says, raw with guilt. “It’s my responsibility to bring you guys back safe.”

“You brought me back safe,” Lance points out, briefly wondering if he would’ve died too, had Shiro not carried him back when he did. Probably, he figures. Prolonged shock or Galra both had the very real potential of doing him in.

Shiro doesn’t raise his head, doesn’t say a word.

“You didn’t kill him,” Lance says quietly.

“I didn’t save him.”

“Because you couldn’t. If you could have, you would have.” Lance’s legs turn to rubber so he sits across from Shiro before they can buckle. “I know you would have. So I don’t blame you for anything and you shouldn’t blame yourself either.”

Shiro remains silent and he still won’t look up. The lone white tuft of his hair dangles, tempting. Lance irresistibly thinks back to the scrawls in Hunk’s notepad.

_Let’s be real, we all want to touch Shiro’s floof._

He tips his head, considering.

_Do NOT startle Shiro._

“I’m gonna touch you,” he warns gently. After a pause, he scoots closer and strokes his fingers down the white tuft. It’s just as soft as it looks, albeit greasy. Lance doesn’t judge, he actually feels a bit better knowing he’s not the only one who needs a shower.

“It’s true,” he confirms quietly. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

Shiro finally looks up, bemused.

“Your floof,” Lance explains, brushing his fingers over it again just because he can. “Everybody wants to touch it.”

“…Floof?” Shiro repeats, the faintest flicker of light in his gaze.

“Yeah,” Lance says. “Half fluff, half poof. Floof.”

Shiro even smiles a bit and it’s a mere faded phantom of his real smile, but it’s there, at least.

“Did you eat anything yesterday?” Lance asks. “Sleep at all?”

Shiro sighs and pats Lance on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Kinda hard not to,” Lance mumbles, looking Shiro up and down. “How’s your back?”

“Don’t worry about that either, it’s fine. A minor strain, if that.” Shiro cups Lance’s face in his hands and the cool press of the metal feels soothing against his cheek. “I’m more worried about you.”

“I just…I don’t know, Shiro. I miss him so much.” Lance tries to swallow past the lump in his throat. “There’s only one person I want to see as much as Hunk right now, and that’s my mom. More than ever, I want to go home. Pidge doesn’t think we’ll make it back at all.”

Shiro closes his eyes for a long moment and when he opens them again, he looks older.

“I’ve considered that,” he tells Lance, soft and bleak, looking to the floor like it’s not something he wants to admit. “I wanted to shield you guys from that possibility though, as much as I could. Now I can’t.”

“Pidge thinks her dad is dead too,” Lance murmurs, unable to resist even if he doesn’t think it’s his place to bring it up, exactly. “Do you think she’s right?”

“That might be her grief talking, Lance.”

“You didn’t answer.”

Shiro drops Lance’s face to pinch the bridge of his nose. “It’s another thing I’ve considered. But I knew Commander Holt, and I’m confident enough he’s still alive to believe in that. Not just because it’s what I’d rather believe in, but because I think it’s true.”

“You should tell her that then.” Lance idly tugs at the neckline of Hunk’s shirt. “If she listens to anybody, it’s you. Tell her to wash the blood off Hunk’s headband while you’re at it. She said she didn’t because it’d be rude. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Does that make any sense to you?”

Shiro ponders, drops his hands into his lap. “Well, maybe. I’ll talk to her anyway.”

Kaltenecker moos and Lance glances back to him, droopy eyed, tail swishing.

“I’m gonna brush the cow,” he decides. “Wanna help?”

“Sure, she could use a good brushing.”

“Wait. She?”

Shiro pulls himself up slow, like he’s still hurting. He nods patiently and gestures to Kaltenecker.

“Yes, she. Kaltenecker has an udder.”

“Oh.” Lance slaps a hand to his forehead, feeling stupid. “Duh.”

Shiro smiles again and maybe it’s a tad less ghostly than the one from earlier. 

* * *

Lunch starts out alright. Both Shiro and Keith show. Shiro put a shirt on when they were done with Kaltenecker. Pidge sits next to Lance but the headphones covering her ears mean conversation is unwelcome. Coran made something so peppery that Lance actually tastes it today.

It’s going as okay as could be expected until Allura pushes her chair out, clearing her throat as she stands.

“Now that you’re all here,” she starts,

(Lance is painfully aware even in this moment that they’re not all here, the sight of Hunk’s empty seat gnaws away at him like an unrelenting rodent)

“I’d like to address the matter of the Yellow Lion. As Voltron cannot be formed without it, it’s imperative we find a pilot, as difficu—“

“Hunk’s body’s barely cold and you’re already looking for the Yellow Lion’s replacement goldfish?” Lance doesn’t mean to snap, but her announcement caught him off guard, like he stepped on a landmine, only no— he _is_ the landmine. She’s set him off and all the anger that’s bubbled beneath the sorrow explodes full force.

Somehow it’s worse that he doesn’t yell.

He tears into her with an icy levelness. What exact words are spoken, Lance scarcely remembers by the time he’s finished. The rage is snow-blind. “Your fault,” “your war,” and “he wasn’t even supposed to be a pilot,” are in the tirade, and he thinks it’s these parts that are responsible for Allura’s expression.

Allura looks like she’s been slapped. Everyone is gawking at him, save for Pidge. She still has her headphones on, doesn’t realize anything’s happened. Shiro’s too stunned to reprimand him, even.

“That’s fair,” Allura says finally, eyes narrowing as her shoulders tense in resignation. “Lash out at me, I can take it. Your accusations aren’t entirely unfounded. I don’t take Hunk’s life or his loss lightly, but none of that changes our mission or that we need Voltron to complete it.”

“I didn’t mean it.” Lance shakes his head, immediate guilt creeping in. “Not how it came out. I’m not really mad at you, Allura…”

“Aren’t you?” Allura gestures widely. “Aren’t all of you? I’m the reason he was here, I’m the reason you’re all here.”

“Zarkon’s the reason we’re here,” Shiro corrects sharply.

“You’re just doing what you have to, Allura. We know that.” Keith gives Lance a pointed look.

“I’m sorry.” Lance rests an elbow on the table and tucks his forehead into his hand. He feels pummeled by his own outburst. He doesn’t truly blame her, she just brought up this awful thing that he was not ready to hear. “I didn’t mean any of it, it’s just…I wasn’t supposed to lose him. This wasn’t supposed to happen….”

“No,” Allura agrees, slumping back heavily in her chair, boneless. “It wasn’t.”

There’s a short moment of silence much like the ones that characterized yesterday and then Allura lifts her head, eyeing Pidge with mystery.

“Just what is she listening to? She’s missed everything.”

“I’d bet on My Morning Jacket,” Coran hums. “Such a lovely sound.”

Pidge had introduced him to her music player just for the hell of, and he never got through the first of the lineup, just indulged in _Wordless Chorus_ on repeat.

“So,” Lance sighs, mustering as much strength as he has to keep from spitting the words. “How do we get the new yellow paladin, anyway? Just hold tryouts like a cheerleading squad and see who wins the Yellow Lion over?”

Allura shakes her head. “Never mind. We don’t have to talk about it now. It’s a conversation I wanted to have with everyone and Pidge isn’t listening anyway.”

Lance finds some relief in this. He didn’t have much of an appetite to begin with and whatever he did have was shoved out by this disgusting, slime of a feeling writhing through his insides. He gets up from the table and leaves without dissent.

A headache takes root and cuts his aimless wandering short, sending him plodding back to his own room this time. He really should take a shower. He’s getting ripe with the lack of one and the steam might help his head. But between the headache and the heartache, it’s the latter that wins out. So Lance pushes his face into the pillow to block out the lights and his thoughts keep him company.

It’s memories turned bittersweet that eventually squeeze tears out of him. Lance had almost thought today was an improvement from yesterday, but it’s really not, and he had no idea it was possible just to feel this painfully empty.

He can’t turn off the worry about Allura dragging in some new yellow paladin. Lance knows she’s right, someone has to pilot the Yellow Lion for them to keep forming Voltron. They definitely need Voltron. But the thought of someone else just showing up to take Hunk’s spot leaves the worst taste in his mouth, plunges him into a new pain different than the sheer loss.

Just as harsh. 

* * *

Eventually Lance gets up just because he’s so restless that he has to. He thinks he’ll head down to Blue and hang out in her cockpit for a little while. He doubts she’ll have anything to tell him but just being with her is kind of consoling, sometimes. Coran intercepts him before he can make it that far, however.

“There’s the paladin I was looking for.”

“Huh?” Lance tilts his head.

Coran holds up a bucket of supplies. “The pods need cleaning again.”

Lance’s shoulders slump. “Is this my punishment for saying mean stuff to the princess?”

“Nope,” Coran trills, startlingly chipper. “You already know how unacceptable that was without any punishment, I trust you’ll reflect on it without my prompting.”

Coran lifts a brow and Lance solemnly nods.

“Good.” He puts an arm around Lance’s shoulders and steers him down the hall. “You’re on cleaning duty because Pidge is too short, Shiro is too sore, and I lost Keith again.”

“Keith can’t clean like I can anyway,” Lance mumbles.

“No, not quite,” Coran agrees, touch of humor in his tone.

“Make sure I don’t get stuck in one this time,” Lance says.

“That only happened once. You’ve cleaned them plenty of times since.”

“Still, once was enough.” Lance shivers at the memory.

“I’ll keep an eye on you,” Coran agrees, gently patting his shoulder.

His gaze softens and Lance gets the sense he’s not just referring to the duration of their chore.

The first pod Lance starts scrubbing has blood crusted on the bottom and idly, he wonders if it’s the last one he stepped out of. They all look the same so it’s hard to tell for sure. It’s brown when he starts scrubbing but the cleaner turns it red as Lance works the brush back and fourth. The bubbles also go from white to red, and every time they pop, the metallic scent in the air gets stronger.

He curls his lip as it invades his nostrils, thick in his throat. But the scent of blood isn’t as thick as actual blood and Lance won’t choke. Not like Hunk choked, the last of his gurgling noises growing weaker when red spilled down his mouth.

“How do you do it?” Lance asks Coran.

“Circular motions is my preference, although your back and fourth technique gets the job done just fine.”

“No, I mean, how do you handle losing everything and everyone you care about?” Lance slumps, closing his eyes against the half-scrubbed stain. “I lost one person and I feel like I’m drowning.”

“Well, I don’t really have a choice in the matter,” Coran replies, without pause. “Altea is gone and I’m still here, so I’m forced to confront that. Handling it gracefully or not, now that is…”

Coran cups his chin and gives Lance a thoughtful look. “Can you keep a secret?”

Lance nods.

“I don’t, always,” Coran murmurs. “You don’t have to, either. But it’s good to try and it gives the ones around you an incentive.”

Lance inhales through his nose and nods again as he resumes scrubbing. “How about Allura? Sometimes I think she looks sad but I don’t know if I’m supposed to ask her about it or not.”

“I’ve heard her cry in private,” Coran admits quietly. “That’s another secret between us, it goes no further than this room.”

“Deal,” Lance promises.

Coran nods. “I don’t hear her often, mind you. I yearn to comfort her when I do. However, I also want to respect her privacy. If she really needs to, I have to trust that she’ll come to me. There’s only so much I can offer anyway. Altea is gone and there’s no changing it.”

Lance scrubs more vigorously. “I don’t really blame her for Hunk. You know that, right?”

“I do.” Coran finishes cleaning his pod and steps out to admire his work from afar. “Allura could stand to hear it.”

“I’ll let her know.” Lance scrubs even harder, the scratch of bristles growing louder. “If anybody, I blame myself. We shouldn’t have split up.”

“If you hadn’t, you might’ve died with him.”

“Or maybe died for him.” Lance scrubs as hard as he can, until his fingers hurt and the pink-red foam of soap wets Hunk’s too long sleeves.

“Do you realize how concerning it is to hear you say that?” Coran asks, frowning deeply.

“It’s not like I want to die. I definitely don’t, it’s just—“ Lance makes an exasperated noise and puts his whole body into scrubbing. “This stain still won’t come out!”

Coran walks over and fans his hand between his shoulder blades, stilling him. He rubs in tender circles, kneading at the tension.

“I don’t want to die, but I would’ve swapped our places.” Lance swallows thickly. “I don’t think that makes me brave, or a good paladin, or some selfless person. I just really, really love my friends and Hunk was my best friend, okay? And I don’t think whatever comes after could possibly hurt as much as being here does right now…”

He’s crying again. His tears cut holes through the foam when they fall. Coran keeps rubbing his back.

“You’re right,” he says and Lance belatedly realizes he’s talking about the stain. “I don’t think it’s going to fully come out. Shame, really, this metal’s supposed to prevent staining.”

“Should I use more cleaner?” Lance sniffles, blinks out some more tears.

“No. I think it’s come out as much as it’s going to. At least it looks better than it did.”

Lance bobs his head, exhaling slowly.

“Do you want to clean the next one or should I go get Keith?”

Lance turns back to him and gives a feeble smile. “I’ll clean the next one.”

* * *

Coran says he’ll do the last two by himself so Lance is off the hook. If he didn’t need a shower before, he definitely needs one now. Altean cleaning products have a very sharp, potent smell that’s barely more pleasant than his own neglected one. It clings to his clothes and his hair and his fingers are pruned with it.

He’s on his way to his room to get a change of clothes when there’s a heavy thump from the training deck. That can’t be good, so he wheels around and ducks inside.

Keith’s on the ground, panting. When he sees Lance he tries to struggle to his feet. His knees knock together as soon as he’s up and he hits the mat again. He starts trying a second time and Lance hurries over, grabbing his shoulders and ushering him back down.

“Don’t! You’re gonna hurt yourself!”

“I’m fine,” Keith grumbles between gasps. “Just overdid it a little.”

The gladiator isn’t active, thankfully, but the punching bag is still swinging. Keith is drenched in sweat, his hair sodden and his thoroughly wet shirt clinging to his shaky frame. He makes a breathy noise of protest when Lance yanks a glove off so he can check his pulse. It’s racing under like a frightened hare under his fingers and Lance frowns crossly.

“I’m gonna get Shiro.”

“Don’t,” Keith growls. “I told you! I just overdid it a little!”

“You’re on the floor,” Lance sputters.

“Just forgot to take a break.” Keith waves his hand dismissively.

“How long have you been training?” Lance studies the room, searching. “Where’s your water?”

“Forgot that too,” Keith mutters, ignoring the first question entirely.

Lance groans in exasperation. “Do you want to talk? Like normal people do?”

Keith shakes his head, still catching his breath.

“Eating until you puke! Training until you collapse!” Lance exclaims. “Really man, you’re starting to scare me. Let’s talk.”

“Nothing to say,” Keith mumbles. “Didn’t mean to do any of that, it just happened.”

“Uh-huh. Well it’s happening a lot and you don’t want me to tell Shiro, which tells me you know it’s not okay.”

Keith glowers at him tiredly but doesn’t speak. Lance always thought his zero impulse control was more dangerous for the rest of them, in battle. But he’s starting to realize that it’s pretty dangerous for Keith too, even when the battle’s over.

“I get that you don’t like talking, but it’s better than whatever this is.”

Keith shakes his head. “Everyone is feeling worse. Shiro hates himself right now because he thinks he’s a failure of a leader! Pidge won’t pick that project she started with Hunk up off the lounge floor and I don’t know why, but when I started to, she burst into tears! You were closer to him than anyone, so I’m not gonna bitch about how I feel when you’re feeling ten times worse.”

Lance rubs the back of his head. “I don’t think of it like that, alright? I’d really prefer you talk to me than do this. This is bad news. You’re gonna get hurt and that’s the last thing that’s going to do anybody any good.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith relents. “I meant what I said earlier. I didn’t want to get sick, I just started scarfing those things down and I couldn’t stop. I didn't mean to overdo it here, either, I just started working out and I had to keep going. I didn’t even realize I overdid it until I fell.”

“All of it has to stop, whether you mean it or not.” Lance frowns. “Seriously.”

“I know.”

“I’ll tell Shiro.”

“I know.” Keith rubs a hand over his face.

“So let’s talk.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Okay.” Keith blinks slowly.

Lance gives him an expectant look.

“So…I keep, like…Ugh.” Keith shakes his head, grasping at his bangs in frustration. “I’m sorry. I’m not good at this. I don’t know how to…Words aren’t…” His face falls.

“Just be honest,” Lance encourages. “Whatever’s going through your head. You need to let it out without wreaking yourself and you don’t have to worry about me. Believe me, you can’t hurt me worse than I already am.”

“Whatever’s going through my head?” asks Keith.

Lance nods.

“I’m thinking about whoever killed him, I guess. Or more like what I want to do to whoever killed him.”

“I’ve thought about that too,” Lance murmurs. He’d butcher them, of course. He hasn’t been put in that position yet— where he’s actually had to kill flesh and breathing Galra. Nonetheless, he doesn’t think he’d feel any remorse taking out whatever monster did Hunk in.

“Would you recognize them? You were there, right?”

“Not when it happened,” Lance says, this clenching pain assaulting his chest as he thinks back. “I was already down. I didn’t start crawling over until I lost communication with him and…and then…”

“I’ve heard enough.” Keith claps a hand to his shoulder. “It’s okay.”

Lance looks away and clears his throat. “You probably need water. Let’s get you some water. I’m gonna help you up, alright?”

“Sure,” Keith says.

Lance stands and takes Keith by the arm, gently hauling him up. He’s still a little shaky and clammy under Lance’s touch. He finds a steadiness as they amble along though, and withdraws from Lance’s side when his steps are even and his perspiration is drying.

“Anything else you want to talk about?” Lance asks warily.

Keith’s like this closed off clam around everybody but Shiro and Lance still isn’t convinced he’s through walking in on his self-destructive whatever.

“Yeah,” Keith decides after a moment. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. When you came out of the pod.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Lance says. “I said some super shitty stuff to you yesterday too.”

Keith shrugs. “I didn’t take it personally.”

His face had said otherwise. But Lance doesn’t tell him that. He does tell him to sit down on the couch while he gets him some water. Keith complies, plopping down heavily. From the fridge he takes a pouch for Keith and one for himself, and when he turns around Allura is standing there.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” she says, hands fluttering as he jumps.

“I just didn’t hear you.”

They look at each other uncertainly, Lance tapping his fingers to one of the pouches.

“Is that a new dress?” he asks awkwardly. He has no idea when or where she would’ve gotten a new one, so it definitely isn’t. It is one he’s never seen her wear before. It’s slightly fancier than her usual one, deep pink with lighter pink accents and gold trim. It ends in a flared trumpet and it makes Lance all the more aware of how disheveled he looks in comparison.

Allura glances down at it, shaking her head. “Actually, it’s…Well, it’s about time I pulled it out of my closet, I suppose.”

“I gotcha,” Lance says, even though her face is weird and he’s not quite sure that he does. “You wanna come hang with me and Keith for a bit?”

Her mouth drops open in surprise. “Ah, alright. Sure.”

Lance tucks a third water pouch under an arm and loops his free one through hers, and Allura clutches onto the touch like she doesn’t care at all that he’s overdue for a shower. “Come on, Princess.”

Keith is sprawled when they return to the couch, but he quickly picks his head up and sits straighter. It doesn’t make him look any less wiped out. Lance disentangles from Allura and hands him a pouch, slumping down next to him and sprawling without shame. Keith might care about pretenses but Lance knows there’s no hiding how much he looks or feels like shit. He might as well own it.

“You look nice,” Keith says when he takes his lips off the straw, eyeing Allura’s gown as she sits.

“You don’t,” she returns bluntly, concerned. “Are you alright?”

“He just overdid it a little training,” Lance says. Keith shoots him a grateful look and nods in agreement.

“I’ve been guilty of that.” Allura’s lips quirk sheepishly.

“Yeah, how many times have you passed out powering the teladuv, now?” Lance’s face crinkles.

“Only twice.”

“Pretty sure it was more than twice,” Keith ventures.

From there they fall into a soft, if somewhat awkward conversation. The mice come along and join them somewhere between the topics of Altean athletics and Keith finding a rattlesnake in his shack. Chuchule gets comfortable in Lance’s hand, perching tiny paws on his thumb.

Allura talks the most but this time she doesn’t talk about anything that hurts. Eventually Keith lets himself sprawl again and Platt curls up on his chest.

* * *

Dinner is a step up from lunch. Pidge still has her headphones on but Lance is sure they must’ve been off at some point today, or else her eardrums would be blown out by now. Shiro doesn’t show though, and that’s concerning.

So after the fact, Lance coaxes Pidge’s headphones off with gestures so she can help him and Keith take some food to Shiro. He hasn’t eaten much since coming back to the castle, and that makes Keith want to bring him like, half the kitchen. Lance talks him down from that, at least, but they still end up with a large load.

Tonight’s meal of some kind of space meat in vibrant sauce, a tray of crackers with some space nut paste, a spotted sandwich, and this weird tea Lance does not like at all.

“Really don’t think he’s gonna eat all this,” Pidge says as they walk down the hall, seemingly still pouting about the trays hovering at a height well above her head.

“Probably not,” Keith agrees. “He’ll have to eat something though, if we bring him all this.”

“I know you’re worried about him but I think he’ll be okay,” Lance says softly. “I mean, we had a pretty good talk earlier.”

“Really?” Keith’s eyes widen, glinting hopefully.

“Yep, when we brushed Kaltenecker. Apparently Kaltenecker’s a girl.”

PIdge snorts. “Of course she is. She’s a cow.”

“Not all cows are girls.” Lance crosses his arms over his chest.

“Uh, yeah they are.” Pidge rolls her eyes. “Male cattle are bulls, Lance.”

“Kaltnecker is technically only a cow if she’s had a calf,” Keith adds. “If she hasn’t, she’s a heifer.”

Pidge pauses, nose scrunching. “Okay. How and when did you become an expert bovine terminologist?”

By this time they’ve reached Shiro’s door and Keith has no interest in answering. Instead he motions for them to back up a bit and knocks.

“Shiro? We brought you dinner.”

After a moment, the doors click and slide open, Shiro apprehensive in the gap.

“You guys didn’t have to do this,” he sighs, weary.

“We kinda did. I haven’t seen you eat a full meal in days,” Keith frets.

“I’ve eaten,” Shiro offers half-heartedly, guilt rut deep into his features.

“I get it,” Pidge says carefully, edging forward. “My appetite’s shot too. I just sort of turn off the part of my brain that’s eating, if that helps? I focus on something else until the plate’s empty.”

Shiro reaches out and ruffles at her hair. “Alright. I’ll try that.”

He moves back and lets them enter, trays and all. He’s got the lights set dim, scarcely brighter than their automatic nighttime setting. Without Lance mentioning it though, he brightens them up. His bed is made, blanket neatly tucked at the corners. Everything in here seems neat. Untouched, really.

They all stick around while Shiro tentatively nibbles on the sandwich, trying to engage him in conversation so true to Pidge’s method, he’s got something else to focus on other than how much he doesn’t feel up to eating it. Lance and Keith relay some of their earlier conversation with Allura, about these crazy Altean athletics, one of which included a maze with literal lava and another where you had to wrestle this scary creature Lance couldn’t even pronounce the name of.

Shiro makes it through the sandwich and two crackers when Hunk inevitably comes up. Pidge starts babbling about their latest idea, complicated words rolling off her tongue in a stream. The stricken look doesn’t hit her face until she’s midway through explaining its components, but when it does, Lance simultaneously feels his chest tighten and his stomach tangle.

“…temporal photon accelerator…” Pidge blinks as her eyes mist up, whips her head off to the side. “Right…You guys have no clue what I’m saying. Great. Who am I supposed to talk to now?”

“I think Allura knows about some of that stuff,” Keith murmurs uncertainly.

Pidge chokes out a low noise and scrambles from the room without looking back. Lance sucks his lip between his teeth and shuts his eyes so he won’t glare. Keith has poor people skills. It’s not his fault.

“That’s one of the crappiest things you could’ve said to her,” he groans anyway.

“I was trying to help…” Keith hangs his head.

“I should go after her,” Shiro says, putting his plate back on the tray.

“No, you need to eat.” Lance straightens up and swallows down the lump in his throat. “I’ll make sure she’s alright.”

He leaves before Shiro can protest and starts looking for Pidge. She’s got short legs but she can make herself scarce fast when she wants to.

His search comes to an end after a hallway and a half, when he spots her in an open storage room. She’s not alone though. Pidge’s arms encircle Coran’s waist and he’s rubbing her back with one hand, moving things on the shelf with the other. Soft, weepy sounds bubble from her trembling shape, but when Coran notices Lance, he waves him off.

He’ll handle this. He’ll take care of her.

Lance nods and backtracks, leaving the way he came.

He doesn’t particularly feel like going back to Shiro’s room. He doesn’t particularly feel like being alone either.

Visiting Blue holds some appeal. He didn’t get a chance to earlier and now seems as good a time as any, so he veers direction and heads down to her hanger.

The Blue Lion provides more solace than Lance anticipated. She welcomes him warmly and encourages him to spill his guts with pulses of reassurance.

So he spills without restraint and Blue understands. She promises understanding in low hums that brush over his skin and feather through his hair. She’d fix it for him if she could, she tells him with pure feeling, her empathetic struggles translated directly to his heart without the imperfection of words.

Lance basks in their bond and it’s the first time it’s been profoundly painful to do so. He finds relief in the release anyway and Blue is thankful for his presence.

She was waiting for him, waiting for this. Lance asks if she’ll pass his condolences along to Yellow.

Blue would if she could, but she can’t.

Yellow’s offline.

He supposes he should’ve figured as much.

* * *

Lance spends the night in his own room and in the morning, he showers. The spray peppers his back with hot kisses and the steam soothes the ache between his eyes. The water plasters his hair to his neck and rinses the grime from his skin as it travels down, tension melting in its tracks.

He only realizes he’s crying when his back begins quivering but this time it doesn’t take as much out of him. He can almost pretend he’s not with all the water streaming down his face. He listens to the rhythmic patter of droplets against the chrome and uses the green soap. The green soap smells the best in his opinion, crisp and zesty.

Lance doesn’t step out until the water runs cold and when he does, he feels better. Good, almost.

He towels himself dry and changes into his clean casual wear. Yeah, he feels pretty almost good. He makes his way to the lounge, planning to break out a video game or maybe watch some Altean dramas stored on Coran’s device.

Lance isn’t the first one there. He finds Pidge gathering metal parts from the floor and putting them in the container Shiro holds for her.

“Oh, hey,” he greets. “Did you finish your…sorry, I forget what it’s called.”

Pidge snorts. “Of course. And no, I’m scraping it. It was Hunk’s idea so it’d be rude to finish it without him. Besides, I need to focus on my Altean right now. I can’t even hold a basic conversation yet.”

Lance glances at Shiro but he only shrugs, sheepish smile on his face. He must not get it either. Oh well. Lance doesn’t really have to get it, he supposes. This is an improvement from her bursting into tears at the mere suggestion of Keith picking the junk up from the floor, that much, he understands.

“What can you say in Altean?” he asks idly, leaning forward and propping his elbows on the back of the couch.

“Not much,” Pidge admits. “I can identify some of Altea’s crazy wildlife, but it’d be easier to learn if the program wasn’t trying to kill me.”

“The settings are adjustable aren’t they?” Shiro asks.

“Yeah. The adjustments are in Altean,” Pidge grumbles, tossing another metal piece in the container.

“Ask Allura,” says Lance.

“I’ve been meaning to. But we were really busy with all the fighting and the alliances, all the winning and then the losing.”

She’s right. The past few days has been the most downtime they’ve had in awhile and it’s been more of a necessary regrouping and team wide wound licking than it’s been any kind of break.

“You might want to squeeze in a lesson today,” Shiro tells her, looking between the both of them. “We have a mission tomorrow. Allura wants to investigate a base where upgraded sentries are supposedly being tested.”

“Tomorrow?” Lance echoes. “We’re not going today?”

This time Pidge and Shiro share a look that Lance doesn’t miss.

“No,” Shiro says, voice level. “Allura has something else in mind today.”

“Huh?”

“Go ask her.” Pidge makes a shooing gesture.

Bewildered, Lance whisks around and jogs down to the bridge. Allura’s dressed in her normal suit today and she gives a small smile as he approaches. Coran’s a few lengths away, going over some data with a pair of mice on his shoulders.

“What’s going on?” he asks. “I mean, something is going on right?”

“Sort of,” Allura chirps. “We’re going to the beach.”

“Huh?” Lance isn’t sure he heard her right.

Allura pulls up a holo screen and zooms in on a planet.

“This is Vopridian. Primarily untouched by the empire, covered by approximately 87% water. It’s a quiet place, we likely won’t run into anything other than crustaceans or waterfowl. I thought it might do us and the castle some good to make a stop.”

Lance peers at the planet on the screen, something stirring in him. It’s not Earth, it’s not home at all…but the beach sounds nice.

“Yeah,” he tells her, smiling gently. “Good idea.”

“It will be a new experience for me. We didn’t have beaches on Altea. The only swimming was done in indoor pools.”

“I’ll show you how to make a sandcastle.” Lance beams.

“A castle made of sand?” Coran lifts his head and gawks, puzzled. “That sounds absurdly impractical.”

“It’s not,” Lance breathes a laugh. “You’ll see.”

* * *

The ocean on Earth had been Lance’s first love. His mom had taken him down to the beach as a toddler and he’d ripped his hand out of hers in a moment of luck, trotting down to the shoreline. The water washed over his toes and the mist sprayed his face. The taste of salt was on his tongue and that part wasn’t as pleasant, even less was his mother’s subsequent scolding.

And none of that mattered because he was mesmerized by the endless expanse of blue. Earth’s ocean was always his first love and it was never his last love, because every time he jogged down to the shoreline, sand flying behind him, it took his heart again. On the days when the beach was covered in seagull crap and it was too cold to surf, the depthless blue still sang him melodies with the rush of the waves.

Even a nasty jellyfish sting couldn’t keep him away and Lance always found himself back at the water’s edge. His heart would thrum to the push and pull of the tide and over and over again, he would fall in love anew.

Lance does not fall in love with the ocean on this planet. The water isn’t blue, it’s slivery white, sparkling beneath the shine of two distant suns. The sand shifting under the pads of his feet is grainier than he’s used to. The scent of salt is sharp in the air, but there’s an undercurrent to it only just distinguishable from the scent he knows.

He does not fall in love with this planet’s ocean, but he make friends with it. He wades in the shallows and gets used to its cold with a smile. He dips underwater and stealthily eels his way over to Keith, just to pop up and shake his hair out like a dog. Pidge and Allura burst out cackling. 

Keith splutters and drags him into a brief wresting match before he retreats back to the towel spread out next to Shiro’s. Shiro looks okay, looks comfortable. He’s laying on his stomach, head resting on an inflatable pillow Coran initially had to push on him.

This feels good. Even better than the shower felt.

The fact that it feels this good just makes it hurt all the more that Hunk’s not here. That’s a wound that’s never going to heal, Lance thinks, one that’s going to rip anew over and over. It’s the flip side to his relationship with the ocean, the bloom of love that never fails to fade every time he greets the sea.

Lance is a fast swimmer but he can’t quite out-swim the pain. This ocean though, this new friend of his— it’s a pretty good salve. So he takes his time and backstrokes and floats, and savors the opportunity. He feels energized, infused with a fresh vigor. He’s sure he could swim all day.

Until Pidge screams.

Lance pauses, touching down as he whips his head in the direction of the shrill noise. She’s jumped into Allura’s arms a few strokes away, flailing wildly as she points.

“What is that!?” she screeches.

The Lance sees it too. It’s this gargantuan, freaky looking thing emerging from the deeper water up ahead. It looks like some kind of demonic lobster, shelled with many legs and claws. It’s brownish and patterned with vivid green speckles. Lance screams too and starts swimming back to land.

Allura lags behind, confused. “It’s a crustacean. What’s the problem? You have crustaceans on Earth. Don’t you even raise them for eating?”

“The ones on Earth aren’t like that!” Pidge splutters. “That thing is gonna eat us, hurry!”

Allura rapidly swims to shore with Pidge clinging to her back, and they sprawl beside Lance on the sand, panting. The alien lobster thing isn’t interested in eating them though, it seems. The thing just scuttles around for a little while, water and fish pouring off its shell. It doesn’t seem to notice them, or if it does, it doesn’t care. It rubs its antennas with its first pair of claws and sends up a typhoon of a splash when it whacks its tail against the water for no apparent reason.

Keith snaps a few pictures. Eventually it sinks below the surface without ever coming toward them at all.

“I’m still not going back in the water,” Pidge declares, blinking wide eyes in the wake of Alien Lobster’s departure.

“Me either,” Lance agrees, shaking his head. Some water trickles out of his ear, warmed from being in there for awhile. He glances down at himself and sees his skin is dusky from the brine. His palms are pleasantly pruned and even if the Alien Lobster didn’t show up, he supposes it’d be time to move onto a different activity anyway.

“Time to teach Allura and Coran how to build a sandcastle,” he decides.

“I call digging the moat,” Shiro announces, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “I make a mean moat, just ask Keith.”

“He does,” Keith confirms, standing up and brushing some sand off his legs. “I’m gonna go look for sticks and shells to add detail with.”

“Good.” Lance snaps his fingers. “Pidge, can you help Coran with the walls?”

“Yes sir.” Pidge salutes and a breeze catches the ribbons of the headband in her hair, orange fabric fluttering.

Lance pauses, swallows hard.

“What should I do?” Allura asks.

“Sorry, got some salt in my eyes. Seawater, right?” Lance clears his throat, blinking back the sting. “You and me are on tower duty, Allura.”

“I’m still unclear,” Coran says, dubious. "How can a castle made out of sand be stable?" 

“We’ll show you,” Lance promises warmly. “It’s just for fun.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this wasn't too wangsty or anything. If it was, APOLOGIES.


End file.
